Before 2005, Prey Smach village had a village development committee (VDC), but the village was still desperately poor, lacking water, rice and vegetable seeds, few ploughing cows and only a footpath leading into the village. The area had also been hit hard by 2 successive years of drought.

When WDO came to Prey Smach, staff were surprised to find mostly only young people in the community. Many of the adults had already migrated away to seek work. Although there was only a small cell-group of Christians, WDO felt it was important to support the village because of its abject poverty.

A CCG was soon formed, 2-members of whom were non-believers, but the group's youth and motivation made up for what they lacked in age and wisdom. Soon this group of young people had motivated others and the full-village meetings were packed with enthusiastic and willing workers. The CDF staff led the villagers through a process of participatory assessment:

• drawing a village map with key features and noting where the poorest people lived.
• identifying and analysing different problems using cause and effect diagrams, and
• recording the history of the village through drawing its story as a 'River of Life'.

Since these early days the village have depicted their 'vision of development' and made activity plans addressing their most serious needs. In reflecting back to the past, the village leader could see that people had been able to transform their lives, the numbers of extremely poor people had been reduced, income in the village had improved and most importantly many more children are now going to school.